Friday, April 08, 2005

Incident: 185,000 medical group patients warned of security breach

Presumably thanks to the California privacy law that requires notification of privacy breaches, the Mercury News is reporting that personal information related to almost two hundred thousand individuals was stolen along with two computers from a San Jose medical clinic.

MercuryNews.com | 04/08/2005 | 185,000 medical group patients warned of security breach:

"In one of the largest cases of stolen medical and financial information nationwide, San Jose Medical Group is alerting 185,000 current and former patients that their sensitive personal data may have been on computers taken during a recent break-in.

In a first-class letter to patients dated Monday, CEO Ernie Wallerstein said two computers were taken March 28 from the physician group's administrative offices. The computers, he wrote, ``contained names, addresses, confidential medical information and Social Security numbers, perhaps including yours.''

While there is no evidence the data has been misused or disclosed to others, police have no suspects in the early-morning break-in, in which the Dell computers were snatched from a locked area of a computer room....."

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